OPEN GIVEAWAYS

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Welcome to another edition of Spotlight Saturday at Darlene's Book Nook, where we feature authors and their books!

To celebrate the holiday season , we will be featuring Christmas books for the entire month of December Spotlights!

We will be joined today by Anne K. Albert.

About Anne:

Anne K. Albert’s award winning mystery and romantic suspense stories chill the spine, warm the heart and soothe the soul…all with a delightful touch of humor. When not at the keyboard she loves to travel, walk on a beach, visit friends and family, and of course, read using ‘Threegio’ her beloved and much cherished Kindle 3G.

Anne has written a guest post, so I will now turn the floor over to her!

Holiday Memories: Fictional and Real

by Anne K. Albert

When I wrote Frank, Incense and Muriel I decided the Christmas season would be a perfect backdrop for this humorous mystery, and I was right! Almost every reader has at one time or another experienced the stress of the holidays. The week leading up to December 25 is enough to frazzle anyone’s nerves, and sometimes it’s even funny!

Frank, Incense and Muriel is a fast-paced mystery with laugh out loud moments. My personal Christmas stories may never rival Muriel’s, but they’re memorable nonetheless.

As a child I remember the week between Christmas and New Year’s as a fun-filled family event. Cousins, aunts and uncles arrived at our home in droves and my mother baked and cooked enough food for an army.

On Christmas Day the kids would eat in the kitchen, while the adults took the dining room. Not that we minded. With no one to monitor our behavior, we’d laugh and giggle until it hurt. Food would fly. Milk would spill. The oldest bossed the youngest. The clumsiest slipped off their chair and fell onto the floor. The greediest filled his plate to overflowing, and eventually the mayhem and madness ended with at one or more of us in tears!

At this point, a parent would order the chaos to stop. When that didn’t work, (and it never did) they threatened to deprive us of dessert. And oh, what an assortment it was--everything from mincemeat pies to shortbread cookies and delectable bars. (My favorite, then as now, is a mouthwatering medley of dried fruit and tiny colored marshmallows, sandwiched between pink icing and a graham cracker crust. Mmm!)

The warning of no sweets got our attention. We’d stop talking, fidgeting, and crying long enough to gobble up our dessert. Then, our bellies full, we’d begin the bedlam once more! Even better, we got to repeat it all over again on New Year’s Day. Except this time we’d go to my aunt and uncle’s home.

There have been many changes over the years. We’ve gone from huge family gatherings to small intimate affairs. Trees have also changed from real to artificial, and stockings and wreathes have been made, repaired and replaced. Gifts have been opened both on Christmas day and Christmas Eve, but throughout all of the years the roast turkey and trimmings have remained the same.

Our family is now spread from coast to coast, but we’ll be together in spirit. As we’ve always done, we’ll create new traditions, new memories, and as always, share some laughs.

From my family to yours, I wish you all the best of the holiday season!

Thanks so much for joining us today, Anne!All the best to you and your family as well!

One lucky winner will win a digital copy of the first book in Anne's Muriel Reeves Mystery series,Frank, Incense, and Muriel.

Set the week before Christmas when the stress of the holidays is enough to frazzle anyone’s nerves, tensions increase when a close friend begs Muriel to team up with a sexy private investigator to find a missing woman. Forced to deal with an embezzler, kidnapper, and femme fatale is bad enough, but add Muriel’s zany but loveable family to the mix and their desire to win the D-DAY (Death Defying Act of the Year) Award, and the situation can only get worse.

To enter the giveaway, you must complete the Rafflecopter entry form below.

The giveaway is open worldwide and will close at 12:00 AM CST on December 22, 2012.

What sweet memories Anne. I can identify with almost all of them including eating at the children's table and the bossy older ones :). We'll be celebrating with you and yours in spirit too. Safe travels my friend!